


The non-canonical canonization of Saint Peter

by titanium (rubidium)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Derek and Stiles are Mates, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication, Unreliable Narrator, courting, peter ends up with an undeservedly generous reputation, sometime-during-season-2-everything-was-suddenly-ok-au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubidium/pseuds/titanium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Weird," said Stiles, and craned his neck to stare after Peter. "Super weird, actually. If he's still a total asshole, why's he doing my laundry?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now you're just somebody that i used to know

To his eternal shame, Peter ran into Lydia while browsing through a tub of asparagus. 

Even for its resident villains, Peter thought as he noticed her noticing him, Beacon Hills was a cruel place to live. She could've caught him stalking one or two of the town's more supernaturally inclined teens, or prowling happily around his burned-out old home, or ducking into the hospital's service vehicle entrance. All three were respectably dubious pastimes. He penciled them into his daily schedule quite often, for the sake of keeping up appearances. 

He would’ve even settled for something boring; she could have spotted him walking along the opposite side of the street while he carried a mysteriously large box.

But no. No, she saw him here, at the Beacon Hills Farmers' Market where the evilest thing present was probably the booth selling vegan cookies. (Peter was sure he'd never be able to purge the taste from his mouth.)

He wasn't even shopping for himself, either. Derek had put together a grocery list, and threatened to start actually making Peter chip in for the rent if he didn't return with everything he wanted. It was written down on a notepad Stiles had left at their loft, with a little cartoon cop in the corner. As Lydia started shouldering her way towards him through the crowded vendor’s stalls, Peter dropped his asparagus into Derek’s canvas tote and hastily covered up the cop’s 'If you see something, say something' speech bubble with his thumb.

"Lydia," he smirked, and subtly wiped the asparagus water off on his pants before offering her his hand. "A pleasure, as always."

"Peter," she said evenly, and nodded. As she walked past him. Away.

_She walked away?_

Peter craned his neck so he could watch her pick over a bucket of freshly cut sunflowers. Call him old-fashioned, but he did _not_ consider that an appropriate way to greet a monster who'd psychologically tortured you for a couple of months. Dismissive, much? 

Without meaning to, he sank his claws into his tote. A couple of his tomatoes popped, and started dribbling juice messily onto the pavement. He'd set her straight. After today, she’d never be able to go near a farmer’s market again without having a panic attack. Neither would that hippie flower farmer, and neither would his other customers. She wanted to snub Peter Hale? Fine. He’d show her what it meant to look Evil in the face (on a Saturday morning, before Evil had eaten its brunch). He’d show them _all._

"Hey, buddy, those aren't free," one of the grubby farmers shouted after him.

Peter cursed. A man with a baby strapped to his chest actually turned around from bagging kale just to shoot Peter a scandalized look.

"Sorry," Peter mumbled, and hurried back to apologetically press a twenty onto the cranky asparagus farmer. “Keep the change.”

This was not going the way he'd practiced in front of Derek's mirror.


	2. he ain't heavy, he's my uncle

"Something is wrong," said Peter. He debated dropping his grocery bags for dramatic effect, but the loft _did_ have a brushed cement floor, and there was no sense in further brutalizing his tomatoes. He set them down gently instead. "Something is very, very wrong. Call Deaton. We should set up a meeting."

Stiles and Derek ignored him, and continued to watch some shitty nature documentary that Peter knew was just an excuse for them to sit closer together on the couch than strictly necessary.

"I'm serious," he said, and squeezed himself into the tiny gap between their legs. "Guys, pay attention."

Derek turned up the volume.

"Well, that's just unnecessary," Peter grumbled. He turned to Stiles. "Gosh, kid, did you have lacrosse practice today, or something? Because your neck is covered in mud. It sure would be embarrassing if somebody you _liked_ saw you right now. Let me help you out with that."

Stiles obligingly tilted his head. Peter licked his thumb and began rubbing at the imaginary stains. "Wow, these sure are on there good. I guess I'll just have to rub a little harder. Tell me if it hurts, okay? Because your skin's starting to look a little red. Derek, doesn't Stiles' neck look red?" Peter licked the pad of his thumb again and began rubbing slow, firm circles under the hinge of Stiles' jaw. Stiles swallowed, and tugged the afghan he'd been sharing with Derek over his lap. 

"Nearly done," Peter cooed. "Gosh, it sure is a good thing that you don't have a mate, Stiles. I don't know if Derek or Scott have mentioned this, but for us, touching another person's neck is a pretty specific form of intimacy. If you _did_ have a mate, and she - or he - had to sit there impotently and watch as I-"

The remote shattered in Derek's hand.

"Kitchen," he snarled, looking pointedly away from Peter's hand on Stiles' throat. "Now."

"Why, yes, Derek, I would appreciate your assistance unpacking the groceries I so thoughtfully purchased for us. How kind of you to offer." Peter rubbed at Stiles' neck a few more times, just because he could, and then followed Derek into the kitchen.

When he entered the room, Derek didn't say anything. That was the beauty of Derek, though: he didn't really _have_ to say anything. His fierce, glowering eyebrows had a way of speaking for themselves. Peter settled himself on one of the kitchen island’s stools and waved a hand dismissively at the living room. "Oh, stop it. You have nobody to blame for that but yourself."

Derek's mouth became small and puckered. Like a butthole, Peter reflected, which was rather fitting, as Derek himself was something of a butthole.

"Yeah, that's right. I said it - once again, you have an entirely self-created problem. Call the press. Have you even _tried_ talking to him, Derek?"

Derek clenched his jaw and then, miracle of miracles, he spoke. "Sixteen, Peter. He's sixteen."

"I'm not telling you to rip the kid's pants off and throw him on your bed. Just have a conversation with him." Peter rolled his eyes, and began picking through Derek’s fruitbowl for a couple of oranges. Honestly, it was a slap in the face to natural selection that Derek had survived childhood. "The symptoms aren't going anywhere. You have to know that much, at least. Why you must insist on making both of yourselves miserable when there are perfectly reasonable alternative courses of action is beyond me. But enough about you. Can we move on to the matters at hand of actual importance?"

Derek slapped Peter’s hands away from his fruit, which was, for him, reasonably close to a verbal affirmative. 

"I ran into Lydia today at your ridiculous farmers' market. She said hello," Peter said. He watched his nephew narrowly. "I know. Surprising, isn't it."

Derek shrugged one shoulder. "I guess. So, what happened next?"

"I- nothing. She just left, but Derek, you're missing the point. She said hello to me. Of her own volition."

"Right. Okay, Peter." Derek nodded. "You're right, that's weird. We should drop everything and focus all of our attention on investigating Lydia Martin's suspiciously good manners."

Peter scowled. "You know what I mean, Derek."

"I really don't." Derek grabbed a bag of Cheetos from the groceries. "Now that this crucial topic has been thoroughly addressed, I'm going to finish the documentary I was watching with Stiles while you-"

"A thousand dollars," Peter interrupted, "I will give you a thousand dollars if you can actually tell me the topic of the documentary you were 'watching.' Come on. What's it about."

"No." Unless Peter was greatly mistaken, Derek's cheeks had acquired a tinge of pink beneath his beard. "I don't have to prove anything to you. Just leave us alone. Stay in here and unpack the groceries before they spoil."

"Yes, Alpha," Peter grumbled, and unspooled a few paper towels from the roll on top of the refrigerator. "Whatever you say, Alpha. Here, take these with you, and give them to Stiles. His neck was pretty damp when I'd finished-"

He'd never seen his nephew leave the room so quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you'll get a break from unreliable narrator! Peter in the next chapter. He is a BLAST to write, though, tbh. I'll miss him :(


	3. he's just a young boy looking for a way to find love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is Handling Things Well (per usual).

“Cheetos?” Stiles moaned, and snatched the bag away from Derek. “Dude, I love you. You’re the best. If awesome was a country, you’d totally be the king.”

Derek coughed, which was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. He’d been feeling sniffly ever since Peter locked him out of the loft, and he had to scale the building’s exterior and break in through a window in the rain. It had nothing to do with the way Stiles smelled when he was pleased about something. “Yeah. Peter picked them up. Probably because he knows they’re your favorite.”

“Mmm. Weirdo.” Stiles lined two cheetos up and started crunching them together. Derek caught himself staring at the cheeto dust as it mixed with his spit and turned into an orangey paste. Not at Stiles’ mouth. “What’s his deal, anyway? He’s been so chill for the past couple of weeks. I keep expecting to wake up dead. I mean, to die. Because you don’t wake up when somebody’s murdered you and you’re dead. Unless you’re Peter.”

This was who the universe, in its infinite wisdom, had settled upon as Derek’s soulmate.

“Yeah. I guess he’s really turned over a new leaf.” 

Stiles snorted unattractively. “I’ll say. Did I tell you about the essay thing?”

Fuck.

Derek called upon his unparalleled powers of subterfuge to arrange his face into a mild, politely disinterested expression. “Oh, no. I don’t think you did.”

“So, when I came by yesterday-” Stiles stopped, and frowned. Oh god, he knew. He was leaning in towards Derek, like he was reading the shameful truth straight from Derek’s eyes… “Are you okay? You look like you’re getting electroshocked again.”

“I am very well. Thank you.” Derek leaned back against the armrest and stretched his legs along the couch to keep Stiles at the opposite end. “So, you were saying? About how you stopped by yesterday?”

Stiles eyed him strangely, but let it go. “Yeah, after lacrosse, like always. You weren’t home yet, so Peter buzzed me in. I guess I left the rough draft of my econ essay lying around somewhere, because I found it sitting on the coffee table. But get this - he’d read through it, and circled all the typos in red pen. I swear, he brought my final draft up, like, a whole letter grade.”

“Mmm.” The sunlight was filtering through the leaves outside Derek’s window and making a flickering pattern of shadows on Derek’s wall. He decided to focus on it intently.

“But that’s weird, right?” Stiles poked at his foot with a cheesy finger. “He’s such an asshole to me most of the time, but then he goes and does something like that. What’s his game? It doesn’t make sense.”

Derek glanced over at his TV. The documentary had finished, but the music for the DVD menu was nice enough, and watching the looped clip of the beaver family waddling along was soothing.

Actually, the whole moment was soothing. Silence was something of a rare commodity when hanging out with Stiles, but it was awesome when it happened. Derek let his eyes drift shut. Stiles was still munching on his cheetos, but it kind of went nicely with the piano music. He and Laura used to spend time together like this. She probably would’ve gotten along well with Stiles.

Who was currently staring at him. Derek was certain. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling under the weight of Stiles’ judgemental eyes. Well. It had been nice while it lasted.

“Dude, are you _napping_? What’s wrong with you? Is training your rag-tag group of werewolf outcasts wearing you down?”

His voice sounded close. Sure enough, Stiles was peering down at him when Derek opened his eyes. One of his hands was braced against the back of Derek’s couch, leaving a cheesy orange smear on the leather.

Derek sighed. “No, Stiles. I’m fine.” He ducked forward under Stiles’ arm, and absolutely did not flex his back muscles as he began rummaging through the storage drawer in his coffee table. He was fine. Everything was fine. He was absolutely not peacocking for this weird, messy kid who was systematically ruining his upholstery. 

“Wait, you have an entire drawer full of remotes?” A little wrinkle appeared between Stiles’ eyebrows. Derek fought the urge to reach out and smooth it away. “Like, you rage-break them so often you actually need that many spares? That’s not healthy. You should probably do something about that.”

“God, Stiles, just pass me the batteries from the old one. They’re still salvageable, I think.” 

Stiles picked them out of the plastic shards of the old remote and handed them over. The little wrinkle between his eyebrows was still there. Derek wished it would go away.

“We’re not done talking about Peter, by the way. So, he just trots around all day, doing your wolfy bidding? Running an endless string of errands? Buying me cheetos and correcting my essays?” Stiles snorted. “That’s depressing. And probably a really quick way to turn the guy evil again.”

“He does other stuff,” Derek said defensively. “He has...interests. And hobbies. Speaking of which, you haven’t complained about lacrosse lately. How’s that going?”

“Same as always.” Stiles stretched his legs out under the coffee table. His thigh was only a few inches from Derek’s, and Derek could feel the heat radiating off of him. One of his favorite moles was barely visible under the hem of Stiles’ athletic shorts. “A cruel daily reminder of my physical inadequacy. But going back to Peter-”

“How’s Scott?” Derek interrupted. Bringing up Scott usually sidetracked Stiles for a solid fifteen minutes.

“He’s good. Last full moon, he and Allison went hunting for rabbits together. But seriously, about Peter-”

Derek stood up abruptly, and headed for the kitchen. What a shameful, horrible move on his part - forgetting to offer his guest a drink. He fished a can of Coke out of the fridge for Stiles, poured himself an extremely generous whiskey, and headed back into the living room. 

“Dude, Coke!” Stiles opened it happily. “I _love_ Coke!”

“Peter knows,” Derek grunted. 

They sat next to one another, sipping quietly. The whiskey did virtually nothing to get him drunk, but it was cold and steadying on Derek’s tongue. He focused on the flavor, and tried to match it to its scent. It was almost impossible, with Stiles sitting beside him smelling like grass and sweat and boy. 

Stiles, who was crumpling up the empty coke can inside the cheeto bag and tossing the ball from hand to hand, ignorant of the crumbs he was sprinkling onto Derek’s carpet.

Stiles, who was throwing the remains of his snack at Derek’s trashcan like he was trying to score a basket, and cheering for himself when it went in.

Stiles, who was saying, “Well. This has been fun and all, but I have a ton of homework I should probably get started on. So. Y’know.”

Thank god. He was leaving. 

Derek handed him his backpack. 

Stiles opened it, and pulled out a calculus textbook. 

“Put something under your paper when you write on it, please,” Derek asked, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The coffee table is pine. I don’t want indented quadratic equations on it forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo....I enjoy rping as a way to practice writing? And my last rp group kind of drifted apart? And I've had kind of shitty luck tracking down a cogent, well-characterized Stiles since then? So if any of you have recs for good Stiles muns, please send them my way via tumblr?


	4. we're fools to make war on our brothers in arms

“Look, all I’m saying is that you didn’t see his face when I was about to leave, dude. He looked like he was gonna cry.”

Scott fought the urge to roll his eyes as he jogged along beside Stiles. Instead, he tossed him the ball, and savored the snap it made when it landed in his net. Practice had ended half an hour ago, and they still had four more campus laps to finish. At least it had mostly stopped raining.

In retrospect, it would have been nice to know that Stiles was going to grow up into the world’s most obsessive guy back when they were kids. He would’ve found somebody else to dig holes with in the sandbox during recess.

“I don’t know, buddy. I think maybe you’re making Derek out to be a more complicated guy than he is. He’s pretty upfront. Sure, he’s not great at talking about stuff, but I kind of doubt he has the emotional depth he’d need to keep a secret.”

“Okay, one, keeping secrets is basically Derek’s main personality trait, and two, I’m telling you. You didn’t see his pouty little face. I ended up doing my trig homework on his living room floor, just to keep him company.” Stiles zipped the ball back at Scott a little more fiercely than usual. Maybe. Sometimes it was tricky to gauge human levels of strength. “His _floor_ , Scotty. I didn’t even use the coffee table, because-”

“-because it’s made of pine, and you were worried you’d write on it too heavily. I know. You already mentioned. Twice.”

Scott paused, weighing his options. Asking Stiles about anything outright was usually a mistake. The last thing anybody ever needed was Stiles taking a knee-jerk, arbitrary position on a topic. Particularly a topic like whether he was genuinely interested in dating Beacon Hill’s resident moody stalker. 

“Okay. Let’s say, for a minute, that you’re right. For whatever reason - fugue state, sudden blow to the head, partial stroke, whatever - Derek’s shitty personality has made a one-eighty, and now all he wants to do is hang out with you and play host. Why? What’s his angle?”

“Who says he needs an angle to appreciate my scintillating company?”

Scott jogged along, just looking at him.

“Okay, fair.” Stiles accidentally sucked in a gnat and stopped, bent double as he coughed on it. Scott patted him on the back with the netted end of his lacrosse stick, like the awesome bud that he was. “I guess there’s this...vibe? Like, this push-me-pull-you vibe? It’s subtle, but I know it’s there. It’s like he likes me, but he’s pissed about it. But he likes me _more_ than he’s pissed about it, so the net sum of his feelings about me is positive. And so we end up hanging out.”

To be fair, that did sound exactly like Derek. Textbook Derek, really. He might have more feelings than anybody else Scott knew, but seriously, the poor guy was so bad at handling them.

Scott feigned his best disinterested shrug.

“I don’t know, buddy. That doesn’t really sound like Derek, to me. Why would he be upset about making a new friend? It’s not like you’re messing with his jam-packed schedule, or cutting into his time with his other buds. If anything, it’s the other way round.”

“I mean, I don’t think it’s a friend thing. I think he likes me.” Stiles looked up at Scott from where he was bent over, still hacking away. He had a dead gnat stuck to the side of his sweaty face, and there was something almost painfully earnest about his expression. “Or has a thing for me, maybe. I think he thinks about me naked, but I don’t know if he has weird, wolfy feelings about it when he does.”

“God, Stiles, gross.” Scott made a face. “Why would you say that. I don’t wanna think about Derek thinking about naked people. Jeez. Okay, if you’re right - one, ew, and two, why is he so mad about it? He needs to get laid worse than anybody I know. Except you, maybe. I’m not necessarily seeing a downside, here.” 

Stiles grimaced. “This is the weird part.”

Right. Because anything involving Derek wasn’t automatically weird already.

The tiny, distant figure of Finstock started blowing his whistle. Stiles predictably flipped him off, and Scott smacked his hand down. “Dude, no. I have a date with Allison in an hour. Don’t make him add more laps.”

Stiles looked grouchy, but at least he listened. They jogged along quietly for a couple of minutes, nets swishing through the air as they passed the ball back and forth. 

It had stopped raining, mostly, and the sun was poking out from behind the clouds enough to glint off their cleats as they ran. If he listened hard enough, Scott could hear the gnat still fluttering its wings desperately inside Stiles’ lungs as it tried to avoid being coated in mucus. It was actually kind of cool. The air smelled fresh and earthy, and as loath as he was to admit it, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing. Jogging was actually pretty cool when you never got winded.

“So, you know-” Stiles coughed, and as his lungs constricted, the gnat died. “You know Peter?”

It had been wonderful while it lasted.

“I mean, I know who he is, but I wouldn’t say I _know_ him. The guy is kind of inscrutable. By the way, is it just me, or has he been really chill since we killed him?”

“Dude, tell me about it. I was literally just talking with Derek about this yesterday. I kept expecting him to, like, pull a nefarious plan out of thin air or something. Get this, though - this is the weird thing - I think he likes me, too.”

“Nope. Impossible.”

“No, im _probable_ -”

“Impossible. Your theory involves both Derek and Peter, two grown-ass men, having a crush on you. I’m officially calling it, dude. You’re projecting.”

Stiles sighed, and kicked at a clump of dandelions. “Yeah, okay, maybe. But maybe not. He’s been strange. He bought me Cheetos and Coke. And he edited my essay.”

Scott slowed to a walk, and after checking that the school obscured them from Finstock’s view, chucked the lacrosse ball lightly at Stiles’ head. It hit its mark, and Stiles yelped. “ _Enough._ ”

“That’s not funny.” Stiles rubbed the back of his head, glaring. “I don’t heal like you do, you know.”

“No, Stiles, what’s not funny is the thirty laps we get to run because you couldn’t stop talking about Derek and his precious pine coffee table and how sleepy he’s been lately during practice.” 

Stiles opened his mouth, red-faced and ready to retort, and Scott held up a hand. “No, I’m serious. You got weird about Lydia just like this a couple years ago, and we’re _not_ going through that again. Handle it. I don’t care what it is - and for the record, whatever it is, it’s definitely not two fully-grown adults getting creepy over you - just deal with it. Handle your piece of it. And in the future, don’t talk to me about it until after practice. I hate running laps.”

For a moment, Stiles was silent, squinting inscrutably into the sunlight at him until Scott broke his gaze. He bullied his feet into a slow jog and tried not to focus on Stiles’ heartbeat as it receded into the distance. It took him a couple of miles to stop listening for it entirely. 

Somehow the next four laps felt longer than the twenty six he’d already run. He was out of breath and tight-throated by the time he finished them.

x.X.x

When Stiles texted him at one in the morning, Scott was still awake. He flipped over onto his stomach and unlocked his phone with suddenly awkward fingers, its screen lighting up his bedroom.

It was a picture of Stiles’ middle finger, captioned “Please. You love running laps.”

Scott took a screenshot and made it his wallpaper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if what i was shooting for came across but i hope so? i feel like scott has more going on beneath the surface than he's generally credited, and his relationship with stiles is kind of fascinating to poke at. they've got layers

**Author's Note:**

> a chapter a day keeps the doctor away
> 
> shoutout to my [rp](badmoonrisingrp.com) bae [Stiles](blameitonthe-adderall.tumblr.com) for developing this head canon with me
> 
> Also shoutout to the university of waterloo students who invented kik, which facilitated this idea's conception. I'm a fan of yall


End file.
